The opinions here expressed strictly are my own. I serve as senior advisor, economics, for American Principles in Action. I am editor-in-chief of thesupplyside.blogspot.com, and am, with Charles Kadlec, the author of "The 21st Century Gold Standard: For Prosperity, Security, and Liberty," available for free download in ebook form here. Charles Kadlec and I are co-editors of the Laissez Faire Books edition of Copernicus's Essay on Money.
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The End Of The Karl Rove Death Grip Signals A Reagan Renaissance

Karl Rove, former Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. President George W. Bush. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Liberals do not grasp the distinction between Ronald Reagan and (either) George Bush. This blind spot creates a massive confusion and hazard to their ambitions. Obama defeated neither the Reagan Narrative nor Team Reagan. Team Bush appropriated, and then marginalized, both. Obama beat Team Bush, not Team Reagan. The implications are huge.

There was a touchy relationship between President Reagan and his Vice President George H.W. Bush. They were rivals during the primaries. Bush attacked the Reagan economic agenda as “voodoo economics.” Bush served faithfully as VP for eight years but Reagan and Bush never warmed to one another. There was precious little rapport between the populist figures populating the Reagan circle and the Eastern establishment retinue of the son of the patrician Sen. Prescott Bush.

When George H.W. Bush’s turn came he talked like Dirty Harry, “Read my lips. No new taxes.” When the moment of truth came, George H.W. Bush blinked, raising taxes. His presidency was liquidated by the perfect storm of a Reaganite base revolted by the abandonment of a solemn campaign pledge plus a tax-increase induced recession. Bush pere was a conservative and a very decent man. He was hornswoggled by elegant Mandarins like Dick Darman.

George W. Bush, as good as, and more conservative than, his father, was hornswoggled too. He campaigned on the theme of “compassionate conservatism.” That phrase, like his father’s “kinder and gentler nation”, implied a certain pitilessness in Reagan conservativism. The implications complied with the liberal caricature of Reagan. Pitilessness, however, reflected neither the self-concept of most Reagan loyalists nor our splendidly humanitarian outcomes (such as the dramatic reduction of the Misery Index). Real conservatives saw Reaganomics as a way of creating broad-based opportunity, not as catering to the rich. It worked out exactly that way … in America and throughout the world. The blossoming of free market principles — especially low tax rates and good money — brought billions of souls out of poverty, from subsistence to affluence.

In an intraparty succession barely noticed by the mainstream media the Bush forces supplanted the Reagan forces within the GOP. Keepers of the Reagan legacy tended to end up at positions of respect and influence within the conservative movement. For example Reagan intimate, counselor, and attorney general Edwin Meese III long has held a prestigious office with the Heritage Foundation, the flagship of the Washington conservative establishment. Even though Meese was a General in the Reagan Revolution, though, his influence on a Bush cohort-dominated GOP — one that chiseled Reagan onto Rushmore while ignoring Reagan’s philosophy — is constrained.

Mandarins of the Bush (pere and fils) cohort sought and received mere token presence in the conservative establishment. They sought, and achieved, rather, vast influence in the Republican Party. Mandarin Karl Rove, comrade of Bush pere’s campaign guru Lee Atwater, became the dominant partisan figure.

The enormity of (and surprise at) the defeat of Romney is a huge setback — and perhaps fatal — to the Bush Mandarins’ hegemony over the GOP. If so, the potential re-ascendency of the Reagan wing of the GOP will prove very bad news for liberals and excellent news for the Republican Party. The Reagan wing now can resurge. A resurgence already has begun.

Many of the same Mandarins that delivered a stagnant economy to President(s) Bush had a hand, directly or indirectly, in misguiding McCain, and then Romney, to resounding defeat. This catastrophic performance may discredit, permanently, Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, among others, with the donors. The Mandarins’ Svengali-like power over the donors was the major source of their power. If even a substantial minority of the donors are fed up with Rove it will open the field for a generational change in party leadership … and direction.

The Reagan Renaissance

Dislodging the death grip of Karl Rove from its throat would put a new generation of political leaders in charge of the Republican Party. The new conservative Republican leaders are strikingly formidable. The leaders of the new generation, like Reagan, and Kemp, before them (and Kennedy still earlier), all recognize the power of the “rising tide lifts all boats”.

The Reagan campaign ethos was distinct from the tactics of “naked cruelty” perfected by Bush pere’s political gunslinger Lee Atwater. (Atwater, may he rest in peace, publicly repented and apologized to his victims before his tragic, untimely, death). Yet the politics of naked cruelty were transmitted into the political culture by Atwater’s comrade, Rove, and his doppelganger on the Left, David Axelrod.

And both the Bush Mandarins and Obama Consiglieres have complemented their politics of naked cruelty with policies of economic stagnation. A Reagan Renaissance promises to restore a political culture of hardball political decency, economic growth, and conservative values.

Eight Republican Reagan Renaissance Men are entering their prime. Removing Rove’s death-grip on the party, with party donors now freed to pursue principled victory rather than a prestige brand name, the Reagan Revolution now can morph into a Reagan Renaissance.

The Reaganesque Governors

Mike Pence was just elected governor of Indiana. Full disclosure: this columnist headed up a tiny superPAC whose mission was to persuade Pence to run in 2012. Many consider Pence to be Reagan 2.0. He certainly is a figure who demonstrated extraordinary, perhaps unique, moral courage (and great judgment) in a lonely opposition to Rove when Rove was at his peak of power. Politico, on the unsuccessful effort to sweep Pence onto the 2012 board:

“If he does run, it’s clear that Pence would particularly appeal to an element of the GOP that has always resisted the establishment and been wary of the Bush crowd — the kinds of conservatives who originally preferred Jack Kemp over the elder Bush.

“And at a moment of pronounced regret among GOP and tea party activists about the expansion of government that took place under George W. Bush, Pence’s distance from that brand is seen as an unalloyed asset.

“’I don’t know of anybody else [in the field] who stood up to Karl Rove,’ said Benko, touting Pence’s opposition to No Child Left Behind, the costly prescription drug benefit and TARP. ‘He has fought for fiscal restraint harder than anybody I know.’”

Pence, however, has a worthy gubernatorial rival for the Reagan mantle. Sam Brownback is a dazzlingly Reaganesque success as governor of Kansas. Brownback just implemented the largest income tax cut in Kansas history. At the same time, he reversed a $500 million deficit into a $500 million surplus, reducing the size of state government by 4,000 positions. Brownback’s state budget director, Steve Anderson, is pioneering a method of accounting that holds government programs accountable for their cost-effectiveness — just like private sector companies have to be. He’s posted it to the Kansas Budget Director’s Office website for the world to emulate. This is revolutionary.

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This guy has amnesia. The economic “prosperity” that we had in the 80s, (which never lifted the boats of the lower classes, btw) was totally funded with huge deficits. He wants to go back to “borrow and spend”? At least Obama wants to do something about the deficit. Reagan’s GOAL on the other hand, was to create large deficits to have rationale to defund the public sector. So says David Stockman.

1. Karl Rove may have been discredited but the Bush Family isn’t going anywhere and you can bet Romney’s $10,000 that they and their cronies are already scheming on how to roll out the red carpet coronation for Jeb.

2. Reagan was of his time. I was a senior in high school when Reagan was elected (we watched it on TV in Civics class at Lorena HS). Unfortunately, the Bush Family dominated GOP has turned the legacy of Ronald Reagan into more of a team mascot then a set of guiding principles.

3. In Reagan’s time, business leaders shared the vision of a rising tide lifting all boats. In Reagan’s era, business saw the hiring of employees as evidence of profitable growth, not a liability to be off-shored, outsourced, and eliminated by any means necessary. Layoffs were done out of economic necessity, not as a strategy to raise of the value of stock.

4. Reagan was willing to negotiate with his enemies without compromising his principles. The best example was his arms reduction talks with the USSR. That would almost be impossible for today’s GOP with what David Frum has called the GOP Entertainment-Complex, which considers sharing an elevator with a member of the opposition to be one step short of treason.

Reagan’s economics were voodoo, but Republicans’ constant, mystical incantation of his name is just straight-up Ouija board bullshit.

The guy was a good president for a certain moment of time, but pretty overrated even so. There’s really not a lot his gauzy memory (I mean, not his own notably gauzy memory, that would be rather insensitive in light of how literally senile he turned out to be…the gauzy memory of him) has to offer in the present situation. The only thing I would say Republicans should really take from him is to be more appealing. Mike Huckabee’s pretty much the only one with any idea how to come off as affable, or even recognizably human.

The “read my lips” quote is very disappointing to hear again and again. The electorate is hoping for a spirit of compromise so that we can get through the fiscal cliff negotiations. Bush Sr. compromised with a slight increase in the top tax bracket by 3% to 31% and boy did he pay for it. When this is drilled into our heads over and over again, how do you expect either Obama or Boehner to come to any kind of understanding? If either side gives at all, they will be judged as weak. Bush Sr. showed that he was reasonable and willing to reach across the aisle. We could use more of that today on both sides.

My favorite and most ardently agreed phrase, quote- “The enormity of (and surprise at) the defeat of Romney is a huge setback — and perhaps fatal — to the Bush Mandarins’ hegemony over the GOP. If so, the potential re-ascendency of the Reagan wing of the GOP will prove very bad news for liberals and excellent news for the Republican Party. The Reagan wing now can resurge. A resurgence already has begun.”

The only thing worse than Liberal Obamacrats, are the GOP establishment RINOs of the Bush’s and Roves. The enemy within, is always far more more dangerous and worse, than the enemy from without.

This is the difference in being a real Reagan Conservative, vs a GOP Republican Party progressive establishment RINO.. for a RINO is no better and different than being a liberal Democrat / Obamacrat. It’s like having 2 political party’s of the same borrow, tax, and spend destruction leadership.. Thus where’s the party of opposition, and not in name only.. It’s the Tea Party Reagan Conservatives, for we are the only real true opposition.

That’s why the GOP Establishment of Nixon, Ford, Rockefeller, the Bush’s, have always hated and fought us grass roots Constitutional Conservatives, from Barry Goldwater, to Ronald Reagan, to Sarah Palin, to Ted Cruz, to Jim DeMint, to Michele Bachmann, etc..

Rand Paul? This is the man who has just come out in favor of RESTRICTING LEGAL IMMIGRATION, to allow for the “pathway to citizenship” for MILLIONS of ILLEGALS. You must be kidding. And as for Ted Cruz, having only won the election a week ago and not sworn in yet, Ted Cruz who has become the poster child for the liberal web site HUFFINGTON POST as the Republican throwing the REPUBLICANS under the bus on their treatment of HISPANICS/LATINOS and how we have to do more for them? You really are missing a big point here in your pushing these people who have NARY a clue on the border. And don’t give me that “cached line” after we secure the border first. That is a lie and has been a lie, and the amnesty of MILLIONS OF CRIMINALS, AKA ILLEGALS isn’t going to garner one single vote for a conservative, just more for the Democrats. And before you reply, with an ill advised “luv me some illegals” comment I LIVE JUST MINUTES FROM THE BORDER IN DEEP SOUTH TEXAS, I live it, I know it, and I know that it is as big a fraud as Fast and Furious, and Benghazi, and the debacle of a fraud know as the election on NOV. 6 2012.

This is the worst self-serving nonsense I’ve ever seen Forbes allow an author to publish. Brownback as anything but an extreme social conservative who hates the idea of unmarried men having sex and who helped Bush regulate the Internet? Rubio who thinks the same way and is pushing very hard to regulate the Internet even more including criminalizing all porn?

If the establishment pushes Rubio thinking that being a latino is going to help them win, they will lose again and this time I will help them lose.

I’m a very politically savvy conservative. I disagreed with Ron Paul about foreign policy but then watched Romney lose because he alienated Paul’s supporters and the libertarian wing of the Republican Party.

I saw how Santorum dragged the reputation of the GOP through the santorum with his ridiculously radical religious agenda.

Santorum was whom many of the Obama voters were voting against because Romney never distanced himself enough from him.

I’m the one Forbes should have asked about what Romney’s loss will mean for the future of the GOP.

Rand Paul is very different from the others you described (I know nothing about Ted Cruz so far).

So you got Ran Paul right. He’s the one most people are looking at now (except the establishment bloggers). There was a failure to recognize that half the GOP is now libertarian and they don’t remember Reagan as some kind of God because Reagan was the one who let the evangelicals take over the party.

Rand may have a chance. But not if the Democrats ran in 2016 on something like “Ban hormones in livestock” and Rand were to oppose that. Libertarianism doesn’t mean allowing poison in food. Let’s see a common sense candidate.

This article is whitewashing propaganda and as wrong as wrong can be. The Bushes are very indecent political gangsters who are very much still ruthlessly pursuing their elitist neoconservative agenda, believe they are entitled to another shot at ruining the country, and have always preferred to let hacks like the late Atwater and Rove do their enforcing and dirty work. And Rove is far from finished in that capacity.

Mark it hear. The 2016 Republican nominee is, not will be, Crown Prince John Ellis Bush. Sold as Juan Arbusto, the first “Hispanic” major party nominee. Will it work? No. Will they try it, yes. Maybe after that fiasco, the “Reaganites” can have another try.